Oh! The Places You'll Go: Part 1

As I sit here in my room by the sea, the room is illuminated solely by the turquoise x-mas lights which cascade across the wall adjacent to where I type. At 58 degrees Fahrenheit, the night is too chilly to enjoy outside. Even island paradises have their winters. Instead I watch the moonlight roll off the waves from a distance. Rather than complain about the temperature to my northeastern counterparts who suffer a much worse fate, I direct my energy to something more productive. Consistent with what I said in the very first blog post, this blog transcends physical location. As I reflect upon the life I left behind to come here, Julio Iglesias' Greatest Hits plays on my Windows Media Player. Please hold your thoughts - I do not have a visitor here who I am trying to entertain. The mood I create is for me and what I am about to write about.

As many of you know, I spent half the month of October in Madrid, Spain living with a group of students and taking language classes 5 days a week for 6 hours. This structured program was orchestrated by the Don Quijote language school. http://www.donquijote.org/ But this blog post is not specifically about this experience. Rather what led up to it.

When one thinks of voids there is usually a negative connotation. Inevitable events such as deaths, relationships falling apart, or sport seasons coming to an end are not uncommon culprits. In May 2009 I was left with a seemingly unfillable void in my life. Hold off the Hallmark and tissues for now and let me elaborate. I, Justin Levine, at the tender age of 25 completed the 9th and final actuarial exam. While this would seem like a reason to celebrate (and believe you me, the casual observer would have guessed it was my 21st birthday that Friday night) it was a shock to my system. From that point forward, I would have 2 extra hours a day to live. I had forgotten what it was like to have interests - hobbies that I could cultivate for the sheer joy of learning.

One of the amenities that Swiss Re, being a global company, offered was access to a network of global people. I was fortunate enough to have a cubicle directly next to the Latin American group. These were people who packed their suitcases to start completely over in the wild world of NY reinsurance. I admired the culture in more ways than one. You could catch me grinning with my cubicle neighbor everytime one of the Spanish "mamis" kissed another - one on each cheek. Although I had conjugated verbs ad nauseum in high school, I sadly lacked the confidence to partake in any sort of meaningful conversation with any of the professionals who spoke Spanish. I decided to change that.

A while back I was introduced to the concept of podcasts. A podcast basically is the audio version of a blog. The podcast owner releases a new audio file intermittently throughout the week or month. I did some research and found a podcast run by a native Spaniard Marina and her expat (English) husband Ben. Their podcasts included 10-20 min discussions between the 2 about a different topic each week. Almost 100% in Spanish. I listened to a different podcast everyday from Monday- Friday for the entire summer. Walking down the streets of White Plains with my iPod, with no other worries in the world, tuned my ear in a way that textbooks simply were unable to. I cannot recommend their podcasts, which are free, enough http://www.notesinspanish.com/. The listening extended beyond the podcasts. Tele-novela became more common than ESPN on my LG.


White Plains is a bilingual city. In order to work any sort of job that deals with communicating with the public, one needs to speak English and Spanish. My confidence grew and I soon found myself ordering cervezas con mis companeros espanoles de trabajo as well as other Latin friends outside of work. We would speak solamente en espanol during the entire night. At first I found myself saying "Como se dice? (How does one say?) and "Que quiere decir?" (What does ___ mean?) I was dragged, at first reluctantly, to Salsa nights. As time progressed, I was proud to be the gringo with 2 left feet. My best friends were from Colombia, Mexico and Argentina and spoke with me more in Spanish than English. It was a thrilling experience which I never had before and probably will never have again.

Estoy cansado (I am tired) and will stop today's post here. Next post - Don Quijote. Que suenas con los angelitos.